


Summer Heat

by Raddtaire



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Dirty Talk, M/M, Spanking, but not underage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 03:50:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14560242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raddtaire/pseuds/Raddtaire
Summary: Comeferre’s older brother – older step-brother – is standing over a rose bush just set in Comebferre’s mother’s garden. He’s holding a shovel in mud-streaked hands and sweat blooms through his shirt between his shoulder blades. It’s been unseasonably hot for May.*Enjolras comes home from college for the summer and meets Combeferre's older step-brother, Grantaire, and develops a not-so-innocent crush.





	Summer Heat

**May**  

Comeferre’s older brother – older step-brother – is standing over a rose bush just set in Comebferre’s mother’s garden. He’s holding a shovel in mud-streaked hands and sweat blooms through his shirt between his shoulder blades. It’s been unseasonably hot for May.

“You’re Combeferre’s friend, Enjolras, right?” He’s never actually met Grantaire, only seen him in wedding photos and heard from Combeferre that he’s an artist in Los Angeles. “I’d shake your hand, but…” His hands are large, calloused, covered in dirt up to his forearms.

Inside Combeferre’s mother gives him a bone crushing hug and pours him a glass of iced tea before he can ask. She asks if he met Grantaire on his way in and explains that he’s being such a dear, helping her with her gardening since she sprained her wrist at her aerobics class. Through the kitchen window, Enjolras can watch Grantaire peal off his shirt and return to gardening.

*

Grantaire is twenty-seven, Enjolras learns.

Enjolras has settled into the spare bedroom next to Combeferre’s. Grantaire lives in the little suite above the garage, helps Combeferre’s parents around the house and garden, uses a studio some friends of his own in town, and works on…whatever he works on. For a few weeks they only run into each other in the kitchen or on the back porch reading. He and Combeferre have planned a busy summer together between applying for internships, reading, and volunteering at the city council. Enjolras tries to help around the house, thank Combeferre’s family for letting him stay there for the summer break, but Combeferre’s step-dad only lets him empty the litterbox sporadically and Combeferre’s mother only accepts his help with watering the plants. Enjolras has been Combeferre’s best friend for fifteen out of their twenty years of life, and his parents have long considered him another adopted son: they’re also too familiar with Enjolras’s home life, or lack thereof.

Grantaire is slow to open and Enjolras is slow to warm, so they don’t talk very much. Combeferre tells Enjolras late at night in his bedroom that Grantaire left an art collective and is filling orders for an online store he keeps up, that he dropped out of college after two years, that his moving back home was Combeferre’s mom’s idea, that Grantaire suggested they get a dog if they were having empty-nest symptoms that bad, but that he moved back within the month. Combeferre tells him all of this and doesn’t yet ask Enjolras about the way he stares at his step-brother.  

 

 **June**  

Summer finds a rhythm. Combeferre and Enjolras volunteer and read and network in county government. Courfeyrac sends postcards from Barcelona and Marius sends long emails about his work in the university archives. When it gets impossibly hot, Grantaire drives them to the city hall, so they don’t have to ride their bikes. Comebferre’s mother’s wrist heals, but Grantaire still gardens with her. Enjolras is captain of the debate team, a member at large in Model-UN, and secretary of the university bicycle coop; he is the persuasive one, the eloquent one of their friends, but he doesn’t know how to talk to Grantaire, feels off kilter around him, and he’s unbalanced by his quietness and his dark hair. It takes him weeks to work up the nerve to ask him what kind of an artist he is. 

“Sculpture.” Grantaire answers. “Well, pottery. Cups and bowls and that kind of thing.” And that’s it.

Combeferre shows him the pieces that Grantaire won’t let anyone in the family pay him for: imperfect circles of bowls with high sides encircled with multi-shaded rings, mugs with speckled glazes, and succulent pots of wood and clay impossibly bound together. The more he turns over the pieces in his hands, the more he wants to touch them, the more he wants to know their origins.

*

The library doesn’t have the translation of a book Enjolras wants but Grantaire does. He hands it over with a warning about excessive marginalia which still does not prepare Enjolras for the forest of notes that litter every page. There’s literary analysis, names and dates of articles next to particular lines, and sometimes ancient Greek phrases over their English counterparts. It’s like another novel between (and outside of and on top of) the lines. Enjolras is infuriated and electrified by his inability to parse Grantaire’s notes. He wades through fifty pages before he gives in and asks Grantaire to talk to him about it after dinner. 

Grantaire opens slowly like the tea roses next to the fence. His normally blank face becomes sharp and incandescent when he talks. They sit close to pour over the book and Grantaire’s notes together in the fading sunlight on the back porch. It’s a long poem about glory and war and death, and Grantaire seems to know everything about it. They do it again the next night. Enjolras reads more slowly than he normally does to draw it out and thinks of more books to borrow from Grantaire.

*

Enjolras warms quickly, but realizes this slowly. When Combeferre’s mother sends him to Grantaire’s studio, he realizes he’s been very wrong about his friend’s brother. Grantaire opens the door to a basement studio, still laughing at something someone else said, and introduces him to his friends, Joly and Bossuet, who run the studio and the little shop above it. He and Bossuet speak together in a lightening fast mess of English and Spanish that Enjolras’s high school Spanish is woefully unable to keep up with. He’s introduced to a woman named Musichetta who wears coveralls and asks him about his studies and about student attitudes toward socialism. Enjolras immediately both adores her and is immensely intimidated by her. There’s a smudge of paint on the side of Grantaire’s nose, and his arms are covered in flecks of clay that flake off as he gesticulates. His hands are large and calloused and his forearms have the muscle of constant use. Enjolras tells himself that he only watches Grantaire work so much because he’s never seen anyone make pottery before and he’s never seen Grantaire laugh so much so easily. Grantaire catches him looking more than a few times and Enjolras can’t figure out why he blushes progressively hard each time. He’s not normally shy. Lemonade is poured, Enjolras’s pleas that he doesn’t want to be in the way of their work are brushed aside, and Musichetta reads his palm and says some equally accurate and disarming things. He ends up spending the whole afternoon there until Grantaire drives them home for dinner. 

*

July’s approach makes the sun grow hotter and hotter. Combeferre and Enjolras break down and go to the public pool. Combeferre asks him, “Do you have a crush on my brother?” Enjolras splashes him and Combeferre laughs at him all day.

*

Cosette returns from music camp and Combeferre fills her in.  

“Enjolras has a crush on Grantaire.”

“I do not!”

“You really do.”

It was one thing when Combeferre teased him about it when they were alone, but he’s finding the idea sticking to him more and more and hearing it said so bluntly outloud is alarming. Cosette is dreadfully down to earth and has seldom been wrong before, so Enjolras sits and dreads what verdict she’ll pass.

“Of course, you do.” Cosette says. “He’s totally your type.”

“I do not have a type!” Enjolras says.

“Yes, you do.” Combeferre and Cosette say together.

“Fine. Fine. So, what’s my type?”

“Grantaire.” Combeferre and Cosette say together.

*

The best friend of the protagonist of the book, who Enjolras suspects is a lot more than just his best friend, dies. He finds Grantaire on the back porch finishing a glass of wine from dinner, and with very little prompting Grantaire launches into a summary of ancient Greek sexuality and a few hundred years of (mostly terrible) scholarship on it.

“There’s an academy of people who will tell you that we can’t say Achilles and Patroclus are gay because sexuality as a concept didn’t exist in the ancient world, and that’s true, but then by that logic we can’t say they were straight either, because if homosexuality doesn’t exist then neither does heterosexuality.” There’s an entire bibliography written on one of the blank back pages entirely about this. “We could elevate it, say that it doesn’t matter if they were having sex because the point is that their love was so strong that Achilles fought a god after Patroclus died, but…”

Grantaire trails off a little and looks at the page. They’re sitting close and each holding half the book open to better read. Enjolras has let his leg lean against Grantaire’s and he would be more distracted by that if Grantaire weren’t speaking with such passion.

“I think it matters just as much that they were human: that they had this great love and bond between them that the one’s death might as well have killed the other. They were at war for ten years, they were human, and they loved each other. I don’t think it lowers the field any to say that their love was physical as well.”

Grantaire’s eyes are bright and his face is warm and Enjolras feels hotter than the setting sun.

*

Combeferre’s parents are asleep, but Combeferre’s light is still on. Enjolras tip toes into his room, avoiding the floor boards that creak, and Combeferre pulls his feet up so Enjolras has room to sit on his bed. 

“I think I have a crush on your brother.” He says. It comes out in a rushed whisper.

“Well, yeah.” Combeferre knows already because he always knows already. He also knows that Enjolras has to come to these conclusions on his own, and Enjolras loves him for what he realizes must have been a monumental amount of patience.  “Are you going to do anything about it?”

“I don’t think I could; I don’t want to make things awkward in your house.”

“I think you should do something about it.” Normally, Enjolras is the one who recommends action, and Combeferre the one who councils caution. To have their positions reversed is strange. “I think he likes you too. He can’t keep his eyes off of you anyway.”

“He _what_?”

“Have you not noticed?” Combeferre’s mouth quirks, he’s laughing at Enjolras on the inside but tempering it because Enjolras is embarassed. “He definitely _wants_ you, but I think he _likes_ you too.”

 

**July**

Combeferre’s house is not the only one on a hill but it is the only one with a yard with an unobstructed view down to the park where fireworks are set off. Combeferre’s parents invite the neighbors and their friends over, and there’s a lot of grilling and chatting and lemonade. Grantaire sneaks Enjolras and Combeferre a beer (Combeferre suspects his parents know and so it’s condoned sneaking). Enjolras and Combeferre are asked lots of questions about their first year at college and their time at city hall. When the sky darkens everyone turns to watch the sky expectantly. Grantaire opens his rooms above the garage to Combeferre and Enjolras where the view is best from the largest window.

It’s a space crowded with books and art supplies Enjolras can’t identify. They wait at the window and Combeferre chats about species of cicadas. It gets darker and the room is only illuminated by the streetlights from outside when, abruptly and not very subtly, Combeferre leaves to go to the bathroom.

The fireworks start almost immediately after, and Enjolras watches and thinks about his arm against Grantaire’s. When Grantaire points down to the yard, Enjoras follows it to Combeferre, now sitting by his parents.

“Why’s he down there?” Grantaire asks.

He imagines Grantaire’s rejection: it would be kind, mutually awkward, and Enjolras would shrink, feeling like a teenager dreadfully in too deep. He thinks about the way Grantaire smiles at him, raises an eyebrow for no reason, seems to never have a shirt on, brushes his knee against his under the dinner table, talks to him about books, and looks at him, seems to be looking at him all the time. Enjolras chooses boldness.

“I think he wanted to leave me alone with you. He thinks I like you.” It comes out smoother than he feels.

“Do you?” Grantaire is looking at him

The sky roars and explodes in light and color over them and Enjolras doesn’t know how to answer, so he steps into Grantaire’s personal space and waits. Grantaire doesn’t move, he looks as calm as Enjolras is pretending to be as he closes the gap between them. Grantaire is impossibly warm everywhere, his hand is like a brand on the small of his back, his mouth is burning, and he kisses back.

Someone calls one of them, Enjolras won’t remember who or how much later, and they rejoin the party.

*

A week is an age while they live in the same house. He’s not sure, of what Grantaire feels or wants, or what he himself wants and in a panic he tells Combeferre everything.

“Oh my _god_!”  
  
“It’s your fault, you left us alone!”

“You kissed my step-brother!”

He had.

“You orchestrated the whole thing!” Combeferre is laughing too hard to answer. “And he hasn’t…he hasn’t done anything! He hasn’t even said anything about it!”

“Maybe he’s waiting for you to do something.”

“I _already_ did something.”

Combeferre can’t stop laughing. Every dinner they sit down to Enjolras feels like he’s ready to jump out of his skin. He catches Grantaire watching him, eyes as dark as his hair.

*

“Just talk to him.” Combeferre says.

*

The temperature reaches into the triple digits and Grantaire drives Enjolras and Combeferre to the city hall. When Grantaire comes to pick them up, Combeferre tells Enjolras that he’s going to stay late to finish some work and that he’ll get a ride home from Feuilly. Grantaire came from gardening in a pair of cut off jeans streaked with mud. Everything that Enjolras wants to say dies in his throat until they get home and the engine shudders to a stop. 

“I hope…” He starts and Grantaire turns to him and he stops. 

“I didn’t mean…” That’s a lie, he did mean. “If I overstepped, I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t.” Grantaire looks at him will all the oppresive heat of the summer.

Enjolras’ chest is a flying bird pushing out the words. “It’s just…you haven’t said anything…”

“I wanted to give you the reins.”

“I won’t move unless you want me to.”

“I want you to.” Grantaire say. His voice is softer and he’s standing just too far away. Something hot and smoking unfurls in his stomach and Enjolras thinks about kissing him again. Grantaire is looking at his mouth.

Comebferre’s mother calls to them from the kitchen, asks if they have any clothes for the wash. Grantaire peels his shirt off over his head and Enjolras can feel himself melt like crayons in the sun at the sight of him revealed inch by inch. The shirt is pressed in a ball of fabric to Enjolras’s chest and Grantaire asks without taking his eyes off Enjolras once, “Throw this in for me?”

This is a hunger he’s never felt before, a famished urge to devour everything he sees and be stripped in turn. Grantaire’s skin is flushed and damp and he wants to taste all of it. He doesn’t bring the shirt to his face and inhale before leaving it in the laundry room, he doesn’t.

*

This is a game for two. Enjolras finds a pair of jeans when he cleans out the lost and found at the city hall. The legs are too short and there are holes the size of melons in each knee, but from the knees up the fit is fine. He takes them back to Combeferre’s house and finds the scissors in the kitchen.

He tries them out for Combeferre in his room, and then cuts the legs shorter. Combeferre skypes Courfeyrac to show him.

“Go an inch shorter.” Courfeyrac says.

“He’s going for thirst trap, not jail bait.” Combeferre says. 

“Half an inch then. You’ve got amazing legs, Enjolras, and I fully support you showing them off.” They go half an inch shorter.

When Grantaire pulls up and gets out of his car, Enjolras and Combeferre are on the porch. The emotions that go through Grantaire perform a three act opera with intermission and dance interlude across his face. His eyes drag over his body and there’s honest surprise in the slackness of his jaw that turns to something like ravenousness.

“Hi.” Enjolras says.

“Hi.” Grantaire says. His voice cracks.

 

**August**

Enjolras borrows more books, Grantaire works, Combeferre pesters Enjolras.

“Are you making out with my brother?”

“We have work to do for the mayor.”

“Yes, but, have you and my brother been _kissing_?”

“Shouldn’t you be weirded out by this?”

“No, it’s too much fun.” Combeferre says.

*

Enjolras wakes up somewhere in the middle of the night when his room is pitch black and deathly silent. Something pulls at him in his stomach, pulling him back from sleep, until he relents and gets up. The bathroom is at the end of the upstairs hall near the door to Grantaire’s garage quarters and the light stabs at his eyes as he pees. He’s washing his hands and over the running water of the faucet a sound he can’t identify snaps him from groggy half-sleep to high alert. Combeferre’s parents live in a neighborhood out of a disney movie, but that doesn’t mean break-ins are impossible.

The hallway window is open when Enjolras was sure it was closed when he walked by a moment ago. He regrets turning off the bathroom light now, his eyes haven’t adjusted from the sudden brightness back to the dark. Enjolras takes careful steps toward the window illuminating a thin slice of the hall. The hair on the back of his neck rises too late as hands seize him from behind, one around his middle and the other sealed over his mouth before the shriek can leave his throat.

“It’s me.” Grantaire’s voice in his ear shushes him. “Don’t scream. My mom has particularly good hearing at this time of night.” Enjolras panic turns to equal parts furious indignation and furious annoyance, lit up all the more by the lips against the shell of his ear and the body he realizes he’s pressed against very tightly. Disentangling himself is a delicate maneuver that he concludes by shoving Grantaire none too gently.

“You scared the shit out of me!” He whispers. “You couldn’t have just said something?”

“I didn’t want to take any chances.” Grantaire has the embarassment to let Enjolras’ first blow hit him, but he catches his wrists on the attempted second and third. “I was…I was sneaking a cigarette on the porch roof.”

“You smoke?”

Grantaire shrugs a little shame-faced, “No, I quit last year.”

“That’s not what quitting means.” Enjolras says.

“It was my first one in six months.” His heart is still pounding in his chest and Grantaire is still holding his wrists. He brushes his thumb over his pulse point and Enjolras wonders if he can feel how fast his blood is running. “Don’t tell on me?”

“Why have one after six months?”

“There’s been a lot of tension this week.”

Enjolras can vaguely smell the smoke on his shirt now. It’s hazy and warm, like Grantaire’s hands that are still only loosely holding his wrists, thumb still brushing maddening circles over his pulse. Maybe that’s why his legs are still shaking minutely. Enjolras can feel the phantom warmth of the hand that was pressing over his face just a moment ago and of Grantaire’s chest against his back.

His eyes have adjusted finally and Grantaire is looking at him softly in the darkness. “Sure.” He says. “I just had a dream that an insomniac who smells like cigarettes half-assaulted me.” He can’t keep the smirk out of his voice when he says it. The adrenaline high first from the surprise and then from this proximity between them in the darkness is almost overwhelming; he can feel an absurd burst of nervous laughter threatening to break out of him at any moment.

Grantaire’s smile might be a little wry in the dark. “Do I normally behave better than this in your dreams?”

“No.” Enjolras smiles around the word. It’s an invitation and he hope Grantaire knows. It’s an invitation to leave, to go back to his bedroom and to keep acting like they didn’t kiss on the fourth of July, or to stay and to feel out the space they’re in.

Grantaire releases one of his wrists to brush a strand of hair out of Enjolras’ face. “How do I normally behave then?” 

Grantaire’s fingertips leave a burning trail down his check and tilt his chin up. Enjolras’s adrenaline has moved, gone from strangling in his throat to settle in the pit of his stomach. It’s his turn in the game, and he doesn’t want to stay still anymore. Enjolras steps closer, pulls him against Grantaire’s chest to be perfectly clear.

“In my dreams you’re _so much_ _worse_.”

It’s not like the kiss on the fourth of July. Grantaire is ready when Enjolras surges up to him and licks into his mouth. It’s hot and fast and there’s no one to call them away this time. It’s a push and pull between their bodies. Grantaire reaches up to bury his fingers in Enjolras’ hair, nails against his scalp, in a way that makes him purr, and turns him to better kiss the air from his lungs. Enjolras runs his hands over his chest and back, solid and close and real, first over his shirt, then underneath it. He’s only wearing a shirt, one of his old t-shirts that became too thin to wear anywhere but to sleep, and his boxers.

Enjolras pulls until he feels his back brush against the wall. Grantaire’s hands keep skating over his ribs and stopping just at his hips, so he shifts to bring Grantaire’s thigh between his legs and the friction is suddon and delicious. Grantaire breaks the kiss gasping and then his lips are in his hair against his ear. 

“Please tell me to stop, please tell me to change what I’m doing if you don’t like this.” It’s a question, an order, and a plea at the same time. “Tell me to go fuck myself and go back to bed if you don’t want this.”

Enjolras muffles his laugh. “I want this.” He feels Grantaire’s hands tighten at his hips when he says it and wonders why Grantaire doesn’t just slide his hands down to his ass. “I’ve wanted this for _weeks_. I want you to stop holding back.” He gives in and grinds against Grantaire’s leg like and animal in heat.

Grantaire makes a sound that might be a sigh and might be a laugh and his voice goes dark in a way that makes Enjolras hyper aware of his lips in his ear and his thigh pressed against his crotch. “You really have no idea what you’re doing to me.”

Grantaire kisses him again and this time rolls his lower lip between his teeth. His hands slip under Enjolras’s shirt and as he presses his teeth just a little harder he brushes his thumbs over his nipples with too much slow purpose to be accidental. It’s like an electric shock and Grantaire swallows the high, broken sound that Enjolras makes involuntarily.

“You’re so sensitive. Of course, you are. I bet you’re this sensitive everywhere.” Grantaire is talking again, low and delicious in his ear, and as much as Enjolras might like his mouth, he might like this talking just as much. Enjolras feels Grantaire’s lips and then teeth against the lobe of his ear and then they’re trailing over his neck, hot and soft, and he never wants it to stop. Enjolras doesn’t realize he’s making any noise, desperate little whimpering sounds, until Grantaire presses his hand over his mouth again to quiet him. Enjolras moans against Grantaire’s palm and feels the blood rush to his face in a furious hot blush because, oh, he _likes_ this.

“You’re so beautiful.” Grantaire keeps murmuring into his ear as Enjolras’s blood thunders through his veins. “The things I want to do to you, somwhere where you can be as loud as you want. God, you make me _wild_.” Grantaire presses his hand harder over Enjolras’s mouth for a moment and Enjolras’s face burns and he loves it.  

Enjolras is bound on a razor thin wire; he’s pinned to the wall by Grantaire’s hips and hand, grinding against his leg helplessly while Grantaire’s other hand is under his shirt tracing circles over his nipple that’s becoming deliciously oversensitive and murmuring filth into his ear. He wants to scream and cry and wants Grantaire to kiss and bite and take him all at once. There’s teeth and lips on his pulse and he realizes foggily that Grantaire is sucking a mark into his skin that will be purple and shameless in the morning. Enjolras is painfully hard and can feel a soaked spot on the front of his underwear. He gives in and his hands that were clutching Grantaire’s arms go to the waistband of his boxers.

He’s too slow or Grantaire knows what he’s doing before he does it. Grantaire’s hand under his shirt pinches the hypersensitive bud of his nipple (and his other hand catches a broken moan so loud Enjolras feels it in his throat), and catches both his wrists in one hand. Grantaire uncovers Enjolras’s lips only to recover them with his mouth and swallow the desperation that Enjolras is breathing; he’s been dipped in lighter fluid and set aflame. Grantaire breaks the kiss just long enough to pull Enjolras’s captured wrists over his head and press a welcome hand back over his mouth so he’s completely pinned again, hips, mouth, and hands. Grantaire’s voice is wrecked and dangerous in his ear. “So _sweet_ , I could eat you whole.” The pressure over his mouth is unrelenting and intoxicating when Enjolras moans into Grantaire’s palm and his hips gain a frantic rhythm against Grantaire’s leg. His orgasm runs through him and he spends in his boxers grinding like a teenager, powerless to stop himself. 

Grantaire moves his hand from over his mouth into his hair and Enjolras breathes unevenly. The fingers scratching against his scalp are soothing and there’s little kisses being left against his jaw and Grantaire is warm and holding him against his chest. With their eyes fully adjusted they make it to the bathroom without turning on the light and Grantaire finds the tissues and helps him clean up. In the faint light from the window, Enjolras can see the outline of Grantaire’s cock still pushing against his sweatpants, but when he reaches out, Grantaire catches his hand and brings it up to his lips to press a kiss into his palm.  

“You haven’t finished.”

“It’s okay.” Grantaire says. “I…only wanted to see you.”

“I want this again.” Enjolras says. “I want to do this again.” Enjolras repeats it into his mouth and Grantaire answers with a kiss that betrays his straining erection.

“Maybe not in the hallway in the middle of the night.”

“Your parents have a date night on Saturday.”

“Whenever you want.” Grantaire noses at the skin under his ear. Enjolras can feel him inhale. “However you want.” His lips are soft and the scrape of the hair on his jaw is rough. “Whatever you want.” This time when Enjolras tries to slip a hand into his sweatpants, Grantaire doesn’t stop him.

Enjolras has had sex before, he tested that brave new world over the winter holidays with a boy he and Combeferre had gone to high school with, a boy who, like Enjolras, had known himself and waited to come out until college. He’d fooled around and explored and been explored, but Grantaire is a blank map. His body is solid and hot and he holds him unselfconsciously, cursing into his skin when Enjolras wraps a hand around his cock. Enjolras knows being wanted and the burning need of release, the appeal of sex and the tension between bodies that can touch and move and fuck. Grantaire is different, and Enjolras craves him in a dangerous way he realizes he won’t be able to brush off like his other hook ups.

Grantaire releases hot and wet into his hand in a matter of minutes, biting a groan into his neck that Enjolras knows is reinforcing a hickey he already has.

*

Enjolras leaves his hair down the next day, despite the heat. Combeferre still manages to discover it. It is Thursday, the weekend is still too far away, and Grantaire is quiet and still too careful with him.  

* 

The weekend arrives and Combeferre’s parents leave for dinner and a show that will go late into the night.

“I’ll hang out if you want, but I don’t think you do.” Combeferre picks up a book with a wink and a rather aggressive nudge.

* 

Enjolras still knocks, even though Grantaire’s door is open. The setting summer sunlight is filtering through the open window and giving everything a glow. The sun is low enough in the sky that Grantaire has turned on two smaller lamps, one of which he’s sitting under with an open book that he’s not looking at. Enjolras closes the door behind him.

“You’ve been holding back.” Enjolras hadn’t thought about what to say before he stepped into Grantaire’s room; he thinks best on his feet and he didn’t know what he wanted to say anyway. Now that he’s there, he realizes all his patience has been lost to the tension building between them over the last week. The hallway hadn’t been a release, but the first detonation.

“Are you afraid you’ll break me?” He says. It comes out sounding just as derissive as Enjolras means it to.

“ _Yes_.” Grantaire spits out. His eyes are burning into him. “You’re my younger brother’s best friend, you’re still in college, I’m nearly thirty, and you’re my sick, guilty wet dream come to life.” He closes the book and tosses it onto a cluttered table where its paperback spine thwacks with finality. “You come here offering…” He scrubs a hand over his face and glares at the floor like there are too many ways he could finish the sentence. “And I don’t know if you know what you’re doing or what you want out of this, and you’re _killing_ me. Enjolras, what wouldn’t I do to you if you let me?”

Grantaire’s eyes are wide but not with fear. They should be reflecting the light back and glowing like a wolf caught in the beam of a flashlight. He’s ready to pounce, and Enjolras wants to roll over at his feet and show him his soft underside, offer up his submission and let him _take_. He walks slowly through the room to the chair where Grantaire is still sitting; he’s leaning back, folded into the body of the chair with it’s curved arms and overstuffed cushions, and he could almost look relaxed. While his body is still, his eyes are fixed on over Enjolras with all the intensity he’s been hoping for.

“‘I don’t know what I want.’” Enjolras repeats slowly. “Can I tell you what I want?” The room is darkening quickly, the sun having set and the remaining light quickly fading. The air outside is cooling, but Grantaire’s eyes on him are scalding. “I can’t stop thinking about this.” Grantaire’s wrist curves against the wooden arm of the chair. When Enjolras touches him there, his hand turns over, instinctually maybe, to let their fingers trail together. Enjolras thinks maybe he could imagine sparks going off between their fingers like wires cut with current still coursing through them. “This is me telling you, I know what I want and I’m here because I want this.” He can hear his voice is dangerously close to pleading, feels himself dangerously close to vulnerable. “I want you.”

Enjolras knows how he looks, knows that his lips are red and wet and that the sunburn he got at the pool has faded into a tan and the hair on his arms has been bleached blonde by the sun. He calls to mind all the times thus far in the summer – no, in the past week alone – that he’s felt Grantaire’s eyes sliding over his body, that they’ve brushed against each other in the hall, that he’s looked to Grantaire only to see him already looking back with hunger and want and something like affection or adoration in his eyes. He thinks about the upstairs hallway at four in the morning with their bodies moving together, about Grantaire’s voice uninhibited in his ear. He wants to appreciate Grantaire’s carefulness and deliberation with him, but it’s taking too long and Enjolras is impatient.

“Of course, if _you_ don’t want to,” Enjolras lifts his hand from Grantaire’s and severs the connection. “I can just jerk off in my room.” He’s going to add ‘alone’ for an extra bite when Grantaire’s paralysis breaks. He is out of the chair instantly, standing, and he hauls Enjolras against his chest and kisses him.

Enjolras thought he understood the nature of hunger, of sexual appetite; he was woefully misinformed. This is a hunger like an addiction that takes root in the body, and for which there is no alternative, no waiting it out to detox, no getting clean. Grantaire tastes like fire and whiskey and _want_. When they break apart for air Enjolras can feel Grantaire’s chest heaving through his hands, slides them up into his hair, buries them in the curls and pulls him back in. 

Grantaire’s hands trace burning paths over his chest and back that make him shiver and sweat at the same time. His mouth is wrecked. Grantaire devours him like he’s starving, like he’s going to eat him alive and ask for more. Enjolras claws at him, fists his hands where they’re caught in Grantaire’s hair and hangs on. He feels ablaze from the inside out and already so turned on he could be embarassed. Grantaire claims his mouth again and again, a reminder both gentle and firm; when his teeth find Enjolras’s lower lip and bite just hard enough to test, Enjolras nearly sobs.

“I’m a beast.” Grantaire murmurs against his lips. “I’ll hollow you out and take everything you give me.”

“You’re an idiot.” Enjolras laughs. He pushes Grantaire back down into his chair, a change in pace that makes Grantaire blink in surprise. Enjolras takes his time to slowly climb into his lap, it’s a big old chair with more than enough room for him to straddle his thighs, and peel his own shirt off over his head. Grantaire goes from surprised to intruigued to hungry.

“Did I say I wanted you to go  _slow_? That I wanted you to be _nice_?” It’s Enjolras’ turn to put his mouth to the skin of Grantaire’s neck and feel his breath catch and his hands run up his thighs to grasp his hips when he kisses his pulse point. The scruff on his jaw and neck has just enough scratch to it that he can relish it against his skin. “I want you to fuck me so hard, for so long I can’t walk tomorrow. That’s what I want.”

“I’m going to fuck you” Grantaire’s laugh is breathless and a little evil, and his voice is rough and deep so that Enjolras feels it through his throat more than he hears it. “until you can’t remember your own name.” There’s a hand in Enjolras’ hair, none too hard but none too gentle, is pulling to bare his neck, bending him back over his lap, and Grantaire is marking him all over again.

The chair is only a few steps from Grantaire’s bed, but it feels like a mile. Getting up would mean taking his hands off of Grantaire, who is a furnace, strong and solid, who Enjolras can’t stop touching. The buttons of his shirt come undone too slowly; it’s not as if Enjolras hasn’t seen Grantaire shirtless enough already midway through the summer, but it’s intoxicating now to be held against all of his broad, tan chest and to touch everything he wants.

Grantaire solves the distance, picks him up and stands in one motion and only laughs a little when Enjolras squeals. In three steps, Enjolras is laid down, laid out on Grantaire’s bed like an offering to be taken or a feast to be consumed. Grantaire presses a kiss to Enjolras’ ankle and burns a path up his leg with searing kisses that turn open mouthed at his inner thighs. Enjolras squirms when the beginnings of his beard scratch at his inner thighs and his whole body jolts when Grantaire’s teeth bite into the muscle of his leg.

Grantaire undoes the button of the denim shorts he’s somehow still wearing, and Enjolras pushes them down his hips. Grantaire lets out a breath and stills to drag his eyes over Enjolras now that he’s wholly revealed. “God,” he breathes “you’re beautiful.”

Enjolras doesn’t know what to say, ‘thanks’ sounds like he’s full of himself, but so does not responding. He pulls himself off the mattress onto his knees so he can look Grantaire in the eye before he kisses him, slow and deliberate. Grantaire only tastes like himself now, and he can only taste Grantaire in his mouth even when he pulls away. He could spend the night happily like this, just making out, but he has goals, and he reaches down blindly to undo the button and zipper of Grantaire’s pants. They keep kissing even as they both push the garment down his legs toward the floor but they break suddenly when Grantaire nearly trips as he’s stepping out of them. Enjolras sees Grantaire then, fully, gloriously naked, and his cock, half-way there and well on its way to fully hard, an arc against his leg. Already, Grantaire is huge and thick. Enjorlas finds himself cocking his head to one side and staring shamelessly.

“You look hungry.” Grantaire says. Enjolras really is.

Enjolras pulls him back toward him by his hips and settles onto his knees to trace a trail from his hip down to Grantaire’s cock with his mouth, despite Grantaire’s embarassed protestations.

“Wait, Enjolras, that’s not what I meant. You don’t have to – ” Enjolras takes Grantaire’s cock into his mouth and swallows, and, dear god, the head already fills his mouth. He tastes like everything Enjolras wants, dense and musky, heavy on his tongue. Enjolras finds a rhythm that must be slow and infuriating for Grantaire, swallows more and more of him every time until he’s deep throating him. He can practically see Grantaire smoldering over him. Grantaire touches his shoulder, testing the waters, and runs his thumb over his throat to feel Enjolras swallow around his cock. “ _Enjolras_.” Enjolras feels him anchor his hand in his hair, and shivers at the idea of Grantaire pushing his head down to take his cock, of holding him there by his hair and just using his mouth, murmuring to him about how good he looks with a cock down his throat. He’s hard at just the thought.

Instead, Grantaire pulls him off gently, then firmly when Enjolras chases his cock. “I’m going to finish way too fast if you keep that up.” Grantaire cups Enjolras face with his other hand and drags his thumb over Enjolras’ lower lip that’s still wet. “And I really want to fuck you still.”

Enjolras tsks with affected sympathy, “Can you only manage once a night at your age?”

Grantaire pushes him down into the bed and kisses him senseless, which is the result Enjolras had been hoping for. They push back and forth, wrestling and kissing and biting.

“You’re going to pay for that.” Grantaire says against his skin.

“I hope so.” Enjolras says.

They end up kneeling on his bed, Enjolras’ back pressed against Grantaire’s chest, so Grantaire can jerk him off far too slowly to be satisfying and revisit how sensitive Enjolras’ nipples are.

“You’re a liar.” Enjolras gasps as Grantaire bends them both forward and presses Enjolras facedown into the mattress with the length of his body. Grantaire makes a vaguely affronted and inquiring grunt and starts to kiss down the notches of his spine. 

“You held back for so long.” Enjolras keeps talking as Grantaire too slowly explores his back with his mouth and hands. “You held back and talked such a big game about breaking me, and you looked at me like you wanted to do the filthiest things, but you’re going _slow_ and you’re _sweet_. You said you were a beast, but – _ah_!” Enjolras cries out then, in surprise, when a strong palm hits with momentum the spot where his thigh meets his ass. The smack echoes through the room and Enjolras is stunned into only momentary silence.

“Too hard?” Grantaire checks.

“ _Harder_.”

“Well.” Grantaire’s voice is dark and dangerous and is punctuated by another smack. Enjolras’s hips grind into the sheet on the one after that, not sure if the sting against his ass or the hand on the small of his back pushing him down is doing more. When Grantaire spanks him again he turns a particularly broken moan into the pillow.

“What was _that_?” Grantaire’s voice is full of exaggerated shock. “College junior, dean’s list, student council,” Each bullet point of Enjolras’s resume is punctuated by Grantaire’s hand hitting his ass in a strike that sends fire through his body. “Honor society, local government intern, and you like getting _spanked_?” Enjolras isn’t yet inarticulate, but the curses he lets out are slurred and barely sensical. Grantaire keeps going, picking up speed and force and Enjolras hears himself begging for more in single word entreaties, “more,” “harder,” “ _please_.” Grantaire obliges.

There’s pain, of course, each time Grantaire spanks him, but it feels so good at the same time. There’s something about it, something like when Grantaire held his hand over his mouth in the hallway, that would be so embarassing if anyone knew, if anyone saw, but is so impossibly hot in the moment. His pulse thunders in his ears, and he can feel his face is red, probably as red as his ass is becoming. He looks over his shoulder just in time to see Grantaire lean down and fix his teeth in the globe of Enjolras’s ass. He takes his time sucking a deep purple mark, just in case his teeth won’t leave prints (they will).

Grantaire kneeds the globes of his ass with strong hands, and Enjolras whimpers at this new stimulus on the hot, sensitive skin. Grantaire parts his cheeks in a way that feels gentle and pornographic at the same time, and brushes his thumb so gently over his hole Enjolras nearly sobs.

“Can I open you up?” Grantaire asks reverently, like preparing him and fucking him is the greatest honor of his life. Enjolras doesn’t trust his voice, so he nods frantically and passes him the lube on the nightstand.

Grantaire takes his time, impossibly so. He starts with one slick finger, gently lifting Enjolras onto his hands and knees to help with the angle. When Enjolras pushes back against him, he adds another and rubs his other hand against Enjolras’ back as he adjusts. At three, Grantaire scratches his fingers through his hair and Enjolras could purr like a cat. On every few too-slow thrusts, Grantaire brushes against his prostate and Enjolras, first slowly, then urgently begins begging Grantaire to fuck him.

“What was that?” Grantaire prompts him. Enjolras starts to plead and cuts himself off, biting his lip. “Say that again for me, darling.” Enjolras can feel himself blushing from the inside out, can feel his cock strain at Grantaire’s words.

Grantaire pulls him back when he tries to bury his face in the sheets and muffle his voice, fists a hand in his hair and pulls, at once gentle and utterly uncompromising.

“Don’t you dare go quiet on me now.” Grantaire’s fingers brush minutely inside him and Enjolras moans brokenly. “You sound so pretty like this, so desperate. You want it so bad, don’t you?”

“ _Yes_.” Something inside him breaks. “ _Please_. I need it. I need _you_.” Enjolras gasps and then curses as Grantaire’s fingers withdraw and he feels abruptly empty. He feels beyond full sentences. He is a creature reduced to need and want and animal instinct. He’s never needed something so urgently, so badly in his life. Grantaire takes a condom from the nightstand and rolls it on, leaving the wrapper on the floor along with their clothes. Grantaire lines himself up and barely teases Enjolras’ entrance, so ready for him.

“Say it for me, darling. Let me hear you say it.”

“Fuck me, _please_. Fuck me, Grantaire.” Enjolras is beyond shame, and his voice cracks as Grantaire slides slowly into him before he’s done speaking.

Grantaire moves with slow shallow thrusts as Enjolras adjusts, Grantaire is big by any standard and he’s bigger than anyone Enjolras has been with. He arches as Grantaire leans over him, covering him and holding them together even as they’re joined. Grantaire kisses his shoulder clumsily and curses under his breath.

“What do you need?” He asks.

“More.” Enjolras breathes. “Fuck me, please, I need more of you.”

Grantaire gives him more. He finds a rhythm  and rolls his hips in thrusts that are devestatingly thorough. Enjolras drops onto his forearms and lets himself fall apart. He is incapable of staying silent and breathes through the moans that rises in his throat every time Grantaire moves. When he urges and asks in half-formed demands, Grantaire understands and moves harder, faster, covers him over his back. When Enjolras’ moans give way to broken cries as Grantaire’s cock slides against his prostate, Grantaire whispers filthy praise in his ear about how good he is for him, how pretty, how tight he is, just for him. His thrusts quicken and turn to rapid snaps of his hips that are brutal and wonderful. 

When Enjolras comes, his orgasm rips through his body, leaving him shaking and crying. Grantaire fucks him hard and fast through his orgasm until he’s oversensitive in a way he’s never felt before then comes hard and hot inside him, moaning into his hair. The world seems to stand still, Enjolras’ ears are ringing and he only realizes he’s still shaking as Grantaire pulls out and pulls him against his chest, rubbing his back, and mumbling, a little broken himself, about how gorgeous Enjolras is.

Enjolras doesn’t know how long it takes him to come down from the high, but it feels like a long time. Grantaire never lets him out of his arms. As wonderfully unrelenting as he had been when they had been fucking through the mattress, he’s soft now and maybe just as sensitive as Enjolras feels. He kisses every spot on his face and tells Enjolras how good he was and how beautiful he is and if he were more conscious, Enjolras might feel embarassed at how good all the praise and cuddling feels.

When his eyes blink open, Grantaire is looking at him softly.

“I’d really like to do that again.” Enjolras says.  

“We can do that.” Grantaire smiles. “Was there anything you didn’t like? That I shouldn’t do again?” 

Enjolras thinks about kissing in the armchair, and the hands in his hair, and Grantaire spanking him and talking and teasing and goading him all at the same time.

“I liked all of it.” He says honestly. “I’d like even more of a few things.”

Grantaire nods. “That can be arranged.”

Enjolras legs shake a little when he stands. Grantaire helps him into the shower and kisses him under the stream like they have all the time and hot water in the world. They share a towel to dry off when Enjolras comes out of the bathroom, Grantaire has changed the sheets.

“I don’t know if you wanted to go back to your room or stay for a bit or stay the night. It’s your choice either way.” Enjolras takes Grantaire’s fidgeting hands and kisses him again, long and slow, like his summer won’t end in a few weeks. So long as they’re not seen coming out of the same room in the morning, no one will be the wiser.

“I’ll stay.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr under raddtaire as well!


End file.
